PHILADELPHIA — Kamala Harris is barreling across Pennsylvania on the final day of the presidential campaign, preaching unity and patriotism to voters while avoiding calling out Donald Trump by name in the nation’s biggest swing state.
Her tour — taking her to five separate cities in fewer than 12 hours — amounts to the final bet Harris is placing on the race.
The vice president has spent more time and money in Pennsylvania than any other battleground, and her decision to dedicate Monday solely to the state underscores how critical she believes it will be in determining the outcome. Trump is also holding rallies in Pennsylvania today, as well as North Carolina and Michigan.
For Harris, the final barnstorming of the state served as a one-day, lightning-speed execution of a strategy she’s deployed here throughout her campaign. Instead of focusing almost exclusively on the state’s biggest and most liberal cities like Hillary Clinton did in her losing effort in 2016, Harris has emulated President Joe Biden and other elected officials who have won the state in recent years, in part, by campaigning in far-flung regions often forgotten by Democratic candidates.
At a canvass kickoff this afternoon in Scranton, in northeastern Pennsylvania, a white-working class area that was once reliably Democratic, Harris did not mention Trump by name, only referring to him as “this other guy.”
“We all have so much more in common than what separates us,” she told the crowd. “There is power in that.”
Later, she held a rally in Allentown, a majority-Latino city where she sought to capitalize on the fallout Trump is facing in the state’s Puerto Rican community after a comedian at one of his campaign events called the island “garbage.” Rapper Fat Joe, who opened for Harris, appealed to Hispanic voters who were still on the fence: “If you’re not decided, where’s your pride as a Latino?”
Harris again only alluded to Trump, speaking of an opponent who is “stewing over an enemies list” and wants to “take us back to the days when insurance companies could deny people with preexisting conditions.” She largely stuck to her message of promoting abortion rights, promising to bring down the cost of living and reaching out to soft Republicans.
She also briefly touched on her own biography, describing herself as “a child of the Civil Rights Movement” and declaring that “I have always believed in our nation’s promise because I have lived it.”
In the final 24 hours of the race, she said, “momentum is on our side — can you feel it?”
Afterward, Harris is scheduled to go to a Puerto Rican restaurant in Reading with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Gov. Josh Shapiro, before flying to the western part of the state for a rally in Pittsburgh with pop singer Katy Perry, and then zipping back to the state’s most populous and Democratic city, closing the day with a late-night, superstar-filled rally in Philadelphia.
It was all giving some Democrats across the state a sense of cautious optimism in the hours before Election Day.
Tommy McDonald, a Philadelphia-based Democratic strategist, said there is a “sober energy” on the ground that reminds him of the 2022 midterms, when Democrats swept gubernatorial, Senate and House races in the state. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said she witnessed a similar groundswell when she traveled to the Philadelphia area over the weekend to rally union members and get out the vote.
“We never had this energy for Hillary. There’s an energy for Kamala,” she said. “I don’t hear people talk about her being the first woman president. I hear people talk about the stakes of the election and what it would mean to have Trump back in the White House.”
Hours before Harris landed in Pittsburgh, Amy Obusek, 52, her mother Ruthanne, 75, and her 13-year-old daughter June stood in line outside the rally. It was the first time the three generations had ever attended a political event together.
“We could be witnessing history,” said Obusek, who lives in a nearby Pittsburgh suburb. “The first female president.”
Harris’ success or failure will depend on her ability to run up her margins in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and the surrounding suburbs in order to make up for losses in other parts of the state. Republicans, meanwhile, are counting on Trump to boost his margins in MAGA country in western Pennsylvania while simultaneously cutting into Harris’ support among Black and Latino men in Philadelphia.
Former Republican Rep. Charlie Dent, who endorsed Harris, said she is well positioned to “perform better than Biden in the Philadelphia suburbs” largely because “the abortion issue will play especially strong there.”
But the key question for Harris in Pennsylvania and other critical battlegrounds is whether she can maintain or even improve on Biden’s margins in exurban and rural areas. She has campaigned in far-flung areas throughout the state, in part, in hopes of not winning but losing those places by less.
But some Democrats and Harris supporters worry that she could underperform “Scranton Joe,” a native of the state, especially in heavily blue-collar communities. “She is an African American female. And, Biden, is, you know, an Irish Catholic guy from the state,” Dent said.
Sam DeMarco, chair of the Allegheny County Republican Party, allowed that Harris is “picking up some support in the suburbs.” But, he said, Trump has won over more support in western Pennsylvania at the same time that Harris is “losing it in the city itself.” Philadelphia, he said, is “no longer the bastion it once was” for Democrats.
In campaign events and on the airwaves, Trump and other Republicans have attacked Harris as a far-left radical from San Francisco who is responsible for inflation.
“So that’s the choice at the top of the ticket, against the crazy liberal policies of Kamala Harris, right?” GOP Senate candidate Dave McCormick told a rally crowd Sunday outside an evangelical church in western Pennsylvania’s deep red Somerset County. “And you don’t have to trust me. In her own words, she says she wants to ban fracking. She wants to transition energy workers. She wants to confiscate your guns.”
In a nod to the political realities in Pennsylvania, Harris has sought this campaign to reassure gun owners that she isn’t interested in taking their firearms. During her sole debate with Trump, she highlighted that she and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, both own guns. Harris also long ago reversed herself after initially supporting a fracking ban when she ran for president in 2019.
In campaign stops throughout Pennsylvania, Harris has tried to position herself as a pragmatic, middle-of-the-road leader despite her past liberal positions. She has focused heavily on a message of freedom and unity, abortion rights and the economy, including boosting small businesses and cracking down on high grocery costs.
Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), who is in a tough race to hang onto his Pittsburgh-area seat, said in an interview that those issues resonate in the region.
“We have great momentum,” he said. “People are showing up in numbers we just have not seen before.”
On Monday, organizers in the Allegheny County Democratic Party office were making a flurry of last-minute pushes to get out the vote — calling, texting and setting up drivers to get voters to the polls.
“There’s a tremendous amount of excitement,” said local county Democratic Party Chair Sam Hens-Greco.
But even he acknowledged that some voters may still need a push.
“Everyone knows who Donald Trump is,” he said. “With her, there may be voters who just need more information to go vote.”
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